A scheme to find a new generation of climate ambassadors from across schools, campuses and the wider community in Ireland has been launched by An Taisce, the National Trust for Ireland. This is an opportunity for individuals to avail of training and then engage with others in actions that will have a positive impact locally and globally on the greatest challenge facing humanity.    

The new Climate Ambassador Programme, run by An Taisce’s Environmental Education Unit, was launched last week. This exciting new programme focuses on identifying individuals in schools, campuses and the wider community who will work as ambassadors for climate change. The programme is open to everyone and its organisers hope to find “people from all walks of life” who are working to make “positive change in their communities”.  Following training, Ambassadors will be invited to undertake actions to make their school, campus or community more resilient to climate change.

12 MONTH PROGRAMME

The programme will run for 12 months, with Ambassadors receiving support from An Taisce’s Climate Action Office. There will also be opportunities to Ambassadors to meet up throughout the programme and share and learn from each other’s experiences.

According to Gary Tyrrell, An Taisce’s Climate Action Officer, the Ambassador Programme “aims to increase awareness of the causes of climate change” and inform people as to what they can do to address the problem. “Through community engagement, the new Ambassadors will play their part in building sustainable Irish communities ready to meet the challenges of a changing climate,” he added.

Commenting on the launch of the new programme, the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Denis Naughten, T.D., said that the programme will “play a significant part in how we as a country try to deal with climate change”. There is a link to a short video of the Minister’s message at http://www.greennews.ie

“Ireland is vulnerable to the effects of climate change and the impacts are serious: more storms, rising sea levels and changing weather,” he said. “A key goal for the Ambassadors is to increase awareness of the causes and outcomes of climate change. They will also undertake a number of actions to make their school, campus or community more resilient to climate change by improving their local environment.” To find out more about the programme, how to apply and what actions you can take, please visit: http://www.climateambassador.ie. Also see http://www.facebook.com/ClimateAmbassador.

The new programme is one of four initiatives being funded by Mr Naughten’s department in partnership with An Taisce’s Green Schools National Climate Action and Awareness Programme. The other three are: Climate-change teacher training, a Climate Action Week and a schools Climate Expo, and are also scheduled to take place over the next year.

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